


Ray Charles is Dead

by Atropos_lee



Series: Watching [4]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 07:06:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atropos_lee/pseuds/Atropos_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ianto wonders if he could really love something that never changes. Change, he suddenly realises, is what makes choice interesting. Ray Charles is dead, after all."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ray Charles is Dead

Jack is buying Ianto lunch.

It could almost be a date. Except that they are in the valley to collect samples of fossilized alien excreta, which only passes for a romantic interlude in the most esoteric of circles. and Ianto is only driving because the last attempt to retrieve a specimen gave Owen gastroenteritis, and Owen is now in isolation in the cells beneath Torchwood, shitting purple into a cardboard bucket.

So, in the circumstances, it seems eccentric of Jack to insist they stop on the Abergavenny road at the Walnut Tree Inn, and sit together in the small bar waiting for two plates of rabbit pappardelle to arrive. Jack insists he should be designated driver, and presses the wine list into Ianto's hand, but it doesn’t appeal, so Ianto orders orange juice and lemonade, and sips it slowly. The juice is fresh squeezed. The bubbles carry fragments of flesh to the surface of his glass.

"The new guy's redecorated." Jack yawns and stretches out his legs. “In the Seventies, this was one of the most famous restaurants in the UK. Londoners used to drive down for lunch, and stand in the car park until a table was free. Mind you, if you brought Franco a present - say a basket of mushrooms - you could always get a seat and a meal in the bar, no questions, no waiting..."

Ianto wonders why Jack is lecturing him on the culinary highlights of the decade before he was born. Does he think Ianto wouldn't know that the Walnut Tree was Elizabeth David’s favourite restaurant? How would a working class boy from Tredegar have refashioned himself except by pouring over the lifestyle supplements in the Observer and Sunday Times? There was a copy of "French Provincial Cooking” on the shelf in Lisa's shared flat in London. For all he knows, it’s still there.

The rabbit arrives, great limpid ribbons of fresh pasta dressed with strands of fragrant meat. Ianto leans forward to meet his fork, linen tucked under his chin to protect the suit. Jack is more foolhardy, gulping, careless of any stain or spot. And why not? Nothing has ever marked Jack. If he were shot now, the bullet would punch a hole through the shirt, smash flesh and bones, scatter blood and viscera over the new Farrow and Ball décor and their fellow diners. Yet two minutes later, before the screaming had even reached full pitch Jack would stand and brush the lead off the seat. 

Why would he worry about a few smears of sauce?

Ianto imagines Jack picking mushrooms in the woods above Abergavenny to trade for lunch, twenty, thirty years ago. Not as a child, nor on a day trip from College or on leave from the nearest USAF base. Jack as he is now, every line, the tiny scar behind his right ear that no one but Ianto sees, the scatter of grey hair that never spreads.

He has known this since he first opened the S'yphdjin case files, left in the open archive, with Jack’s confident signature on the collection sheet, "Jack Harkness, Oct-31-1959". It’s the same signature on the back of the Torchwood corporate card that Jack throws down now, to pay for lunch.

They cross the car park to the SUV, and Jack slides behind the wheel. Ianto fastens his seat belt. Jack does not. He long since disabled the chime warning of an unfastened belt, and Ianto no longer reminds him, even for form's sake. Why bother.

Jack is happy; punches the CD changer, sings along with a whoop. Not Glen Miller, he hasn’t listened to that disc for months. _It's Ray Charles, Hit the Road, Jack, and don’t ya come back, no more, no more, no more.._. Is Jack bored with Swing?  Or is it possible he does change, just a little over time?

Ianto wonders if he could really love something that never changes. Change, he suddenly realises, is what makes choice interesting. Ray Charles is dead, after all. The Walnut Tree is no longer besieged by food obsessed Londoners. The mushrooms in the woods swell and wither in a single day. The trees take longer, rocks on which they grow were once sand in a desert, and will one day long from now be sand again, perhaps at the bottom of the sea. Everything changes - except, it seems, Jack.

“Jack...?”

“U-huh,” Jack turns to him with a smile that makes the sun seem dim. So happy. Good food, music, great weather. A perfect day...

“Why the accent?” Jack looks puzzled. The smile dims just a little, becomes something richer, stranger. "I mean, you’ve been living in Wales for decades - longer than I have - and you still sound like a Nebraska farm boy.”

"How would you know?" Jack waggles a lascivious eyebrow. "You met many Nebraska farm boys?"

"Have you?" Ianto snaps back. "Jack, are you even American?"

Jack flips off the music. They drive on in silence. Ianto doesn't press the point. Over the last few months he has finally learned that Jack's silence is not a wall, as he once believed, but a process, and that there is, always, eventually, an answer, even if it seems incomprehensible.

But it is a long process, and they do not exchange a word while they deliver the sample - with due precaution - to the hub, nor on the fifteen-minute drive to Ianto's apartment.

Jack keeps the engine running. Ianto releases his seat belt and reaches for the handle.

"Thanks for lunch."

"No problem. Glad you enjoyed." The engine ticks on. "Ianto.  You ever find something that, well, felt right. Like you belong?"

"Like a good restaurant?"

"Yeah."

"Or a coat?"

"Yeah, that's it." Jack grins. "You put it on, and you know it was just there - waiting for you. "Or a name...?"

Ianto quickly reaches to cover Jack's hand on the ignition and turns the key. Off. "It's OK. Stay. Please."

_____

Later Ianto will wake, and listen to the soft breathing beside him, aware of time stretching every second around him into infinity. Just how old is the silence he has embraced? He can reach out and trace every inch of Jack's body, has more than licence to do so, but - is Jack still Jack without his coat, his voice, his name?

"What do you really sound like?" he will whisper.

And the silence stretches on, over years, decades, eons, until Jack turns, holds him as if he is afraid to fall, and breathes in reply,

"I don’t remember."


End file.
